We had a nice breakfast in the hotel, then packed up and cleared out. In a downpour. Which continued most of the drive south to Edinburgh. But our good weather-fu held out, and by the time we got to the airport to drop off the rental, it was a beautiful day. We got a taxi from the airport to our B&B back downtown, where we dropped off the bags and then went out for a walk.

It was still early in the day, so we decided to walk over to the Royal Mile and then up to Edinburgh Castle. The Castle is brilliantly sited, of course, and it’s easy to understand why it has played such an important role in Scottish history. The Wikipedia article covers the history of the castle pretty well, and there are plenty of images available online, but here are some I took.

Yeah, all that stuff is on the burger. The ‘mac n cheese fritter’ was about the size of two decks of playing cards stacked together, breaded and fried crisp, sitting on top of the burger patty. It was almost impossible to bite into the whole thing. But it was pretty damned tasty.

We took our time getting back to the B&B, just exploring the town along the way. After resting a bit, we went back out to explore some more, over around the Edinburgh Playhouse. That evening we popped into a quirky little place just around the corner from our B&B for a little light dinner. We crashed early.

Monday, May 14.

We had train tickets back to Manchester shortly after noon. But that gave us plenty of time to check out one more part of Edinburgh we had wanted to see: Calton Hill.

I only took a few pics while we were there, though we did very much enjoy both the walk and the views from the top. Here are a couple to give you an idea:

After our stroll on Calton Hill, we got back to the B&B in time for our ride to the train station and the five-hour trip to Manchester. It was pleasant to roll through the Scottish then English countryside, snacking on goodies we’d brought. We’d booked a room at a hotel next to the Manchester airport, and had a nice dinner there that evening. The flights back home (Manchester to London, London to Chicago, Chicago to Columbia) the next day were all fairly uninteresting, except we did take a new A380 for the transatlantic leg of the trip. That thing’s a monster, and it felt less like being on a jet and more like being on a large ocean cruise-liner. It was a long day (about 22 hours) of travel, but we’ve had worse, and it was good to be home.

Since then, people have asked me if I enjoyed Scotland, and wanted to go back. Unequivocally, yes, I did enjoy it. And I could certainly see returning, but it would have to be for a specific reason (to attend the Edinburgh Festival, say, or something like that). While we only got to see a small portion of the country, I feel like it was a good sampling, and now ‘that itch has been scratched.’